The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance Gets a New Addition

2023 Best of Year Winner for International Small Higher Education

Right from its harlequinesque exterior—a monochrome skin of diamond-shape slabs of Jerusalem stone that’s both firmly contextualizing and freshly inventive—courtesy of New York–based HWKN Architecture, this 27,000-square-foot, three-story addition to the Jerusalem Academy of Music & Dance confidently mixes aesthetic daring with design practicality. (That skin offers great thermal insulation.) Along with a recital hall and various teaching rooms, practice studios, and performance spaces, Tel Aviv–based HQ Architects’s interior layout includes a central atrium dominated by an exposed concrete stair that crisscrosses the void like the monumental bridges and catwalks in a Piranesi drawing. Festooned with hanging fabric strips that help control acoustics, the atrium also serves as a community hub where students and faculty from different disciplines can interact socially and creatively.

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Hg architects: erez ella; ayelet kamar-erez; martin neiman; rany mahameed; keshet rosenblum; smadar efrati; ido aziz; isam qaymari; omer gura; gal kelman; liat halbersberg; ofer bilik; philip stiebler; dana lieber.

hwkn architecture: matthias hollwich; robert may; marc kushner; kate scott; adam hostetler; egbert miles chu; victor barbalato; brad engelsman; alberto herzog; sj kwon; todd shapiro.